The Bottom-Up Revolution

The decisions that look simple at the start of a board game can become the problems you spend the rest of it trying to solve. Nick Shrag, a video game programmer and board-game designer, built 'People Live Here' around two players sharing responsibility for the same town. One manages local government finances and development, while the other represents the community and the way people move through what gets built. Players have to work together as roads expand, highway subsidies shape development, and earlier decisions keep narrowing the options available later. Shrag is interested in games that do more than entertain as they can help people understand how real systems behave once those choices start piling up. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Nick Schrag (LinkedIn) Bugs & Bicycles by Sarah Rose (Site) Microlandia (Game) Join the play test here (Strong Towns Commons) Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn) Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here. This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

Allendale had already lost much of its population after one freeway cut through the neighborhood, and another highway project threatened to deepen the damage. Planner and architect Kim Mitchell first came into the fight thinking his professional role was to bring answers, but listening to residents changed how he understood the work. In 2012, he helped form a “learning and doing” group that still meets more than a decade later, building trust and civic capacity through repeated action. More than a decade later, Mitchell sees the trust and civic capacity built through that process as inseparable from the neighborhood’s continued ability to organize. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Kim Mitchell (LinkedIn) Strategic Doing (Site) Shreveport's Highway Emperors’ New Clothes (Article) Why Does The U.S. Destroy Its Cities For Highways? by Strong Towns (YouTube Video) Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn) Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here. This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

Getting involved in your city doesn’t have to feel like homework. Margaret Allen works at a bank and is part of Strong Des Moines, where meetings feel less like formal civic duty and more like a group of people genuinely excited about figuring things out together. That atmosphere has pulled her deeper into city budgets, council meetings, and conversations she once would have tuned out. It has also made the group more willing to borrow good ideas from elsewhere, including Strong Towns Chicago’s improv series, as they find their own ways to make local issues easier to talk about and more fun to be part of. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Strong Towns Des Moines (Site, Instagram, LinkedIn) Find a Local Conversation near you (Site) Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn) Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here. This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

Daniel Basubas thought New Zealand would feel very different from the sprawling Southern California communities where he grew up. Instead, he found many of the same development patterns and many of the same arguments over parking, bike lanes, and who streets are for. In Dunedin, he now helps lead the Urbanerds Ōtepoti Dunedin, a Strong Towns Local Conversation that meets at the local pub. The group gives people a low-pressure way to talk through those issues, meet others who care about the city, and get more comfortable participating in local decisions, whether that means commenting on a council plan or speaking at a public meeting. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Daniel Basubas (LinkedIn) Find a Local Conversation near you (Site) Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn) Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here. This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

Floating homes are already common in parts of Europe, and Jeff Kraatz thinks North American cities could use the same idea to create entirely new neighborhoods on the water. The founder of Floating Towns explains what it actually takes to move beyond a few individual houseboats and build a community of 50 or 60 homes. The homes may float, but the harder work still happens on land: planning, approvals, infrastructure, affordability, and getting local leaders on board. With miles of waterfront sitting largely unused, Kraatz sees room for cities to grow in a direction they rarely consider. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Jeff Kraatz (LinkedIn) Floating Town (Site) Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn) Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here. This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

A wider highway promises faster trips, new investment, and billions of dollars flowing into Houston. Susan Graham and Ally Smither have spent years asking who receives those benefits and who is asked to move, breathe more pollution, or watch another neighborhood get divided. Recorded at the 2024 Strong Towns National Gathering, this session follows Stop TxDOT I-45 through lost votes, a federal pause, and the long work of keeping people involved after the project moves forward anyway. The same system now struggling to maintain what it already built is still asking communities to make room for more. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Ally Smither (LinkedIn), 'How an Opera Singer Joined the Fight Against Freeways' (Article) Susan Graham (LinkedIn), '75-Year-Old Houston Advocate Refuses To Surrender to Highway Expansion Project' (Article) Stop TxDOT I-45 (Site) We Built the Best Interstate System. Now It’s Falling Apart. (Video) Mission Accomplished Report (Site) Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram) Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here! This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

In most suburban neighborhoods, a corner store or small commercial space can feel years away, even when residents want places to gather and local businesses need somewhere to begin. Rather than wait for a zoning change, Lauren Penn worked with a neighbor to turn their front yards into a tiny market with a baker, a coffee roaster, artists, children selling handmade goods, and people who might not otherwise have met. The project grew out of her interest in the “missing middle” of local economies: the space between an idea at home and a full commercial lease. For parents, especially mothers, markets like this can offer a realistic way to test a business idea and earn income during a season of life that does not fit neatly into a standard work schedule. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Lauren Penn (Site, LinkedIn) Stronger Denton (Site) Stronger Neighborhoods (Site) Pop-Up Market Makers (Site) How One Front Yard Became a Neighborhood Pop Up (Bottom-Up Short) Local Recommendations:‍ Thai Ocha L’Amitié Bistro Two Gentleman of Verona Gelato North Lakes Park Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram) Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here! This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.